Millon: Essentials of His Science, Theory, Classification, Assessment, and Therapy

Abstract

For the past 4 decades Theodore Millon has provided the field with a series of articles and books that illustrate his unprecedented effort to build a unified science of personology and psychopathology. Especially significant is the nonreductionist synthesis of personology with universal principles grounded in the concept of evolution. His theoretically derived personality disorder prototypes are most unusual in that they correspond in almost all regards to the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) Axis II classification schema. In this article, I summarize major elements of Millon's model, past and present, including the personality disorder types and stages of personality development. Perhaps best known to the readers of Journal of Personality Assessment is his publication of several objective diagnostic instruments (e.g., Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III; Millon, Millon, & Davis, 1994; Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory; Millon, Millon, & Davis, 1993). Most recent is the construction of a clinician-rated checklist (Millon Personality Disorder Checklist; Millon, 1997) of structural and functional forms of psychic pathology. I touch on these measures as well as his very recent framework of personality-guided, synergistic treatment for both Axis I syndromes and Axis II disorders.